


Strawberry Lips

by urdearestmom



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, mike is good at makeup it's canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 21:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15228189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urdearestmom/pseuds/urdearestmom
Summary: “Ugh, why is it so patchy?”El quirked an eyebrow. “Patchy?”“Yeah, see how it’s not a solid line? It looks like I drew it with a crayon, ew.”She giggled at Mike’s irritated expression and poked his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.”





	Strawberry Lips

**Author's Note:**

> another prompt sent to me on tumblr! this is something i started writing a little while ago actually (inspired by the Danny Don’t You Know music video and also the makeover scene in s1e4 of ST that i think about a lot) but these prompts gave me what i needed to finish it :)
> 
> prompts: "I'm never letting you go." and "We'll figure this out." 
> 
> hope you enjoy and head on over to my tumblr @urdearestmom if you wanna send me more prompts!!

“Hey, um, I’m gonna bring you something special tomorrow. A surprise.”

“Surprise?”

“A surprise is-”

“I know what a surprise is, Mike.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Um, anyway, it’s from Nancy. She thought you might like to have it.”

“Okay.”

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“At ten- ten-fifteen?”

“Ten-fifteen, yeah!”

“Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.”

Unfortunately, he was, and he was stressing about it the entire time he was biking to the cabin. It was because he’d been dumb and gone back to sleep after his painstakingly-set alarm woke him. Luckily, he only ended up being about ten minutes late so El hadn’t had time to worry yet, although she did give him a reproachful look when she let him into the cabin.

“I know I’m late, and I’m sorry,” he said, quickly setting the bag he’d brought on the table and opening his arms for the hug he knew El was waiting for. It’d become their customary greeting (she also hugged all their other friends whenever she saw them- including Max- but Mike’s hugs were special, apparently).

Pulling away, El’s face lit up when she looked at the bag on the table. “Is this the surprise?”

Mike nodded, about to explain, when Hopper came out of the bathroom. “I’m going to work now so you kids better behave.”

He put on his hat and grabbed his keys as the two kids saluted him exaggeratedly. El had picked it up from Dustin after he did it in front of her once, and after she started doing it the rest of her friends followed suit. Hopper always gave them dirty looks whenever they did it, but that was the intended result, after all. Pissing Hopper off just a little bit was a lot of fun.

They heard him grumble as he went out the door. “Goddamn  _kids_ …” The Blazer roared to life on the other side of the trees and faded away down the road before the two turned back to the table.

Mike couldn’t help but smile at the glee on El’s face. All he ever wanted was for her to be happy and if surprises were the way to do it, he was going to surprise her a whole lot.

She untied the knot at the top of the bag without touching it, too excited at the prospect of what could be in it to waste time untying it, and then dumped the contents out. Mike stood behind her with a wide grin, waiting for her reaction.

“Makeup?”

“Yeah! The eyeshadow was Nancy’s, but she said she never used it. It’s not really her colours,” he explained. “She thought you might like it, but she wanted to give you some other stuff too so she bought it the other day.”

El opened an eyeshadow palette to reveal varying shades of purple as well as a nice square of black at the end of the row. Spread out on the table were a tube of mascara, an eyeliner pencil, and a small tub of lip gloss. She nodded appreciatively, eyeing the different colours.

“What’s this for?” El asked, putting down the shadow and picking up the eyeliner.

“Oh, that’s eyeliner,” answered Mike, pointing around his right eye with his finger. “You sort of draw with it around your eyes. Nancy says it makes them pop.”

“Can you show me?”

Mike felt his face heat up a little and he leaned against the table. “I mean- I’m a boy, El, boys don’t usually do this kind of stuff.”

El tilted her head curiously. “But you did it for me… that time. It was good.”

“It’s cause Nancy made me let her practice on me when I was little,” he said, nervously tapping his fingers. “And then she thought it would be awesome if I could learn to do it too so I could do it for her when she’s lazy. I never have, but I guess it came in-”

There was a thump outside and the pair rushed to the window to risk a tiny peek through the curtains. They breathed twin sighs of relief upon seeing that it was just a bird that seemed to have flown directly into the cabin wall and not someone coming to kidnap El. There hadn’t been word of anything in months, but everyone was still cautious.

El turned back to the table and then looked at Mike again. “Please?”

He relented. He didn’t know how to say no to her, really. “Do you want me to do it on you or on me?”

Her eyes widened. “You can do it on you?”

“I mean-” Mike started to blush again. “I can, yeah. To show you how to do it yourself. I’ve never done eyeliner, though, Nancy just had me watch her.”

“Try!”

He sighed. “Alright, we need a mirror.”

A few moments later both teens had squeezed into the tiny bathroom which contained the only mirror in the cabin, El holding the black pencil out to Mike. He took it and stared at himself in the mirror, hesitating.

El playfully pushed his shoulder. “Show me!”

Mike sighed. “Okay,” he said, leaning toward the mirror and closing his right eye. “I think you kind of just… draw a line across your eyelid.” He did so and then leaned back to have a look. “Ugh, why is it so patchy?”

El quirked an eyebrow. “Patchy?”

“Yeah, see how it’s not a solid line? It looks like I drew it with a crayon, ew.”

She giggled at Mike’s irritated expression and poked his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.” She watched, enraptured, as he went over the line again, darkening it until it looked more solid.

He smiled, finally satisfied. “There you go, that’s more like it!” He paused to look in the mirror again, as if to confirm. “You can also go under your eye if you want to, though if you do you gotta be careful not to stab yourself in the eye. I think I learned most swear words from the amount of times Nancy stabbed herself,” Mike joked.

El’s smile widened, encouraging Mike to show her that too, so he leaned back close to the mirror to continue. He managed to successfully underline his eye without stabbing it, although it did get a little watery and he had to blink the tears away in order to avoid ruining his painstakingly applied eyeliner. When he finished, he turned back to El and gestured to his face. “You wanna try?”

She shook her head. “Do your other one.”

Mike shrugged and got to it, unabashedly now enjoying this little impromptu makeup tutorial. He was finishing his left eye when he spoke again. “If you do under your eye, you also don’t want to make it as dark as the top. Nancy says it looks bad.”

“Okay.” El filed the information away for her attempt.

Mike leaned away again, surveying his work. “Nancy also says eyeliner is never even but I think mine looks pretty even, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Seems like I’m just a natural at this shit. If I ever have a daughter she won’t need to do her own makeup!”

El rolled her eyes fondly. “Will you let her do it on you too?”

That wasn’t even a question, it was a given. “Of course, duh.” Mike hesitated before speaking again. “Plus, I mean… it kinda looks cool, I guess.”

El nodded affirmatively. “You look bitchin’.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Mike smiled again, a warm feeling bubbling up in his chest like Coke when you open the bottle after you shake it. “Cool.”

“Can I try now?” El asked shyly, holding her hand out for the pencil.

“Yeah, go for it!” He answered, placing it in her palm. He watched as she stepped closer to the mirror to get a good look at her eye before raising the pencil to it.

“Like this?” She asked, looking at him out of the corner of eye.

Mike reached over to correct her fingers. “More like this, but yeah. Now you just… draw.”

“Okay.” El started with short, light strokes, not really making much of a line. It was even patchier than Mike’s first try. “Like this?” She asked again, turning so he could see her face fully.

Mike shook his head. “Sort of, but it’s really patchy, see? You have to go over it a lot to make it dark. Try doing longer strokes, it might work better.”

A few minutes later, El had finished her first eye. It was a little shaky but it was something, and Mike was proud of her for trying.

She pouted. “It’s not good like yours.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s only your first try and apparently, I’m good at this. You’ll get better if you keep practicing, so try your other one.”

“Can you do it?”

“El,” Mike laughed, “I could but that’s not the point, you have to try it!”

She harrumphed and turned back to the mirror, clearly displeased with his answer. To make up for it, Mike stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling into her neck. The tip of his nose pressed into her jaw and he rubbed it softly, taking in her smell. She kind of smelled like Hopper, which Mike guessed came from living in such close quarters with the man and using the same soap, but without the lingering scent of cigarettes. El was like a cleaner, cuter,  _girl_  version of her adoptive dad. It sounded kind of weird, but Mike liked it. It was comforting. He pressed a short little kiss into the side of her neck and El shivered.

“That tickles,” she said, slightly glaring at him through the mirror, the pencil paused on its way down her eyelid.

“Does it?” He did it again, grinning.

“Mike!” She protested, squirming in his grip. “Let go, I want to finish.”

He promptly put his chin on her shoulder so they were both facing the mirror, squeezing a little tighter. “I’m never letting you go.”

El’s piercing gaze softened a little. “You don’t have to,” she murmured. “I’m not leaving.”

Suddenly, Mike’s arms were shoved away from her, forced to his sides. “But I want to finish!”

“That’s  _so_  not fair!”

“Tell that to your- your perfect eyeliner!”

“It’s not perfect, I’m just good at it,” Mike scoffed.

El huffed. “Go away.”

“Fine!”

Mike went back into the open area and sat on the couch with his arms crossed, staring at the wall, but a moment later he had an idea. He snatched the tub of lip gloss off the table and opened it, smearing some on his index finger and then swiping it across his lower lip. He did that thing Nancy did all the time, pressing his lips together to spread it around, then made his way back to the bathroom.

“How do I look?” He asked, popping his head through the doorway. “I stole some of this,” he added, holding out the little container.

El squinted. “Cute.”

Mike made sure she was watching as his tongue flickered out to taste it, her eyes following. “Mm, tastes like strawberry.”

Her eyes widened. “Can I have some?!”

“Well, you can’t eat it,” he answered fondly. “But you can put some on, when you’re done being mean to me.”

“I’m not being mean to you!”

“Tell that to my perfect eyeliner!”

El groaned.  _“Mike.”_

_“El.”_

“Let me finish,” she whined. “I’m almost done!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll let you finish,” he said, raising his hands and backing out.

She was out of the bathroom a few seconds later, holding up the eyeliner proudly. “Is it good?”

Mike turned to look at her and smiled at her expression. El looked so happy, and he was glad that he was there to see it. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that her left eye was a tad more crooked than she probably wanted it to be. “Yeah, looks great!”

“Can I have some strawberry lips now?” She asked, looking expectantly at him.

“Yeah, here you go,” he replied, handing her the tub of lip gloss. He watched confusedly as she put it down on the table and looked back at him, her eyes glimmering. They flickered down to his now shiny lips and he suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe because he knew what was coming next.

And come it did. El cupped his cheeks and pulled his face down to her level to connect their lips, the end result of which was indeed her getting lip gloss all over her mouth. A sense of peace settled over Mike at feeling her so close to him and knowing he wasn’t ever letting her go. A few seconds later, El pulled away and licked her lips.

“It  _does_  taste like strawberry,” she giggled, looking up at Mike, who was sure he had the dopiest expression on his face.

“Can we do that again?”


End file.
